


Dismantle the Sun

by proskynesis



Category: Ancient History RPF, Classical Greece and Rome History & Literature RPF
Genre: Child death (mentioned), Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, F/M, M/M, Necrophilia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-14
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2020-01-13 07:15:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18464074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/proskynesis/pseuds/proskynesis
Summary: Ecbatana, late 324 B.C.E.: Hephaestion is dead, Alexander is unhinged, and Roxane sees her chance. Be warned, this is dark! Please heed the tags.





	Dismantle the Sun

Roxane paused before the door to adjust her veil. She shooed back the handmaids, motioning for them to remain behind in the antechamber, then signed to the door-guard that she was ready. 

The king had requested her presence. By rights he should have come to her as he had in the past, but Roxane could hardly have refused his invitation. She was also secretly pleased. The king had specified she was to come alone, and this could mean only one thing. She had painted her face and scented her body specially.

The door-guard knocked, waited, and called out her name and title, adapted to his barbaric tongue. Long moments later, and still no sound from within the room. When the door-guard dragged the great door open anyway, Roxane turned to him in surprise – but he kept his eyes to the floor and refused to look at her, saying only, “Enter, lady.” She could feel his curious eyes on her as she crossed the threshold. The door swung quickly to behind her.

It was cold in the room, and dark. There was no fire in the grate, not even any lamps. She was surprised at this. It was coming on to winter up in the mountains of Media, well past the time the court should have left for the warmer regions of the great cities between the rivers. She had lived her childhood in places far colder than this, she knew, but there was something in this coldness that unnerved her. Why had no one answered the knocking? Why was there no fire? Should she call a slave to make one up? 

Roxane stood still for a while, undecided. She did not want to move further into the room without a light to guide her. It was vast, a bedchamber for the King of Kings; she could feel it in the way the air moved. Was this not the right room? But then why would the royal guards stand outside an empty room?

Slowly her eyes became accustomed to the lack of light in the room. There was a window somewhere, with yellowed moonlight streaming through it. All the same, she almost started when she saw him, still and pale as one of his newly-made statues before the painting.

He looked tired and drawn. They said he had not slept for three days and nights, after. 

His hair was beginning to grow back out by now, though still uneven in places. She heard that he had insisted on hacking it off himself. He had also insisted on being there at the washing and dressing of the body. Some said he had even taken part. She had curled her lip at this when news of it reached the women’s quarters; it was unseemly, him acting the part of a woman – but how would anyone dare to deny him?

“Great King…” Roxane began, hesitantly, in her best Greek. 

She felt she should say something, about the state of the room, the lack of light, anything. She realised, suddenly, that she had not seen him since it had happened. What should she say?

Her Greek remained rudimentary at best. She travelled with a train of women from her native land to attend to her daily needs, and did not see the need to learn. She knew they would not accept her, anyway, no matter how well she spoke their language. He had no Bactran, as far as she knew, and only enough halting Persian to complete the basic court ceremonials. 

Eventually he stepped forward and touched his hand to hers, as if to assure himself of her presence. It was cold. This close, his eyes were unnaturally bright. He was staring at her with such fierce intensity that she dropped her eyes. When she looked up, he was gone, further into the shadows at the far end of the room.

She drew her veil tighter about herself, and followed. 

He was kneeling beside a raised bed, with ornate lions-claw feet. It was half visible in the moonlight. Despite the cold of the room, when Roxane saw what was on the bed she felt a tongue of fire lick up her spine.

He lay on gold and purple cloth, his arms across his chest in the Egyptian style. But for his clammy paleness and the stillness, and the strap tied tight under his chin to keep it from falling open, he could have been sleeping.

He had been dead a moon’s turn, at least. The embalmers had done their work well.

Alexander was stroking at the dead hair, as if soothing a child to sleep. There was a strange sad look on his face. He turned to Roxane, beckoning her, then leaned forward and kissed the mouth of the corpse.

Roxane was almost sick with fear. Her heart thumped in her chest. This was not right, not even among Greeks – but who was there to shout for help? The door-guards knew. They knew, and had still let her in. The king was clearly mad, if he had sent for her at all. If she did resist, he might turn dangerous. She could see no weapon, but she was not enough of a fool to consider that the Great King would sleep unarmed. Besides, he was a full-grown man, a warrior never beaten in battle. She was sure he could kill her with his bare hands had he wanted to.

She found herself kneeling by his side. Now she could not see the look on his face, just dark space where his eyes should be. When he reached to kiss her she did not try to stop him. His arms came round her. His lips tasted of wine, and salt, but she still fancied she could taste the corpse on him, and shuddered. 

When he began to work at the clasps of her dress and his full intention became clear, Roxane almost twisted away. Instead she clenched her teeth and let him pull her, half naked, onto the bed. 

Besides, she thought with a swell of stubborn pride, it was her the king had brought with him to Ecbatana. Her, and not the new bride, that daughter of Darius, nor the daughter of Artaxerxes. They had been left back at Opis, after all that grand ceremony, and she had received no word from her go-betweens that anything was expected to come of those unions. 

There was chance yet that she, Roxane, would be the mother of the firstborn heir. The gods had been cruel, so far. Nothing had come of their wedding night, or the precious few other nights that had followed. She tensed slightly at the thought, remembering the bitter ecstasy of the birth and then the wrench of loss. She had been young, and scared; at the time she had blamed herself. She had made herself sick with crying, while the women petted and soothed her like cooing doves, and she writhed on the bed biting at the furs and beating her fists in the pillows. 

He had never come to her since. Her misery had been compounded; surely this was punishment for her failure. He had wanted an heir, and she had disappointed him. That was the end of it. In time the wound had become less raw, had slowly healed over, but the memory still stung.

When he still did not come, she began to wonder if there was another, a rival. She could not bear that. She knew of the boys, well enough – the Greeks were famous for it – but word had never reached her of any wife, until Susa. 

She had seen him little enough anyway, away as he was on campaign. Their meetings were brief and formal; then she would not see him for months, left to her own devices and entrusted to the care of some general as part of the baggage train. This did not worry her. She supposed it was the way things went, when you married a barbarian warlord who was incapable of staying in any one place a season at a time.

It had taken her until now to realise the truth. 

Her upper arm brushed that of the corpse, and she bit the inside of her lip bloody, willing herself not to cry out. She forced down the thoughts that any child conceived in such a way could not lead a happy life. Now was not the time for superstition. Here, unlooked for and almost beyond hope, was her chance. She would not turn it aside, not for anything. 

Eventually he was inside her. He was still only half hard. She felt him turn towards the corpse, burying his face into its hair, whining something in the back of his throat. She supposed it was a love-endearment, in Macedonian or some other savage tongue. She felt him stiffen completely within her. He began to thrust erratically, panting. His eyes were closed, and he was weeping. She did her best to lie still beneath him, and stared at the shapes the moon-shadows made on the near wall. She longed to be back in the women's quarters, where there was at least light and warmth and living faces. 

On their wedding night he had been gentle, almost shy. It had surprised her, who had been expecting the worst. Beforehand, the gossips had told her that he had only lain with one other woman before her. She had thought them liars.

When he finished, it was with the dead man’s name on his lips. He curled around the corpse, stroking at it, murmuring to it. Everything stank of the spices and herbs used in the preparation of the body, and sweet cloying frankincense. 

As soon as she dared move, she fumbled on her clothes with cold fingers. It was not until she had pulled up her veil that she let the unshed tears track down her cheeks. 

He was seated by the corpse once more, naked in the moonlight, his eyes desperately searching the dead face as if for signs of movement. He paid her no attention. She left him to his madness.

Half a moon had passed before she saw him again. She stood on the high walls, now shorn of their glory by his grief, and watched the cavalcade set off south for Babylon. She could not see from this distance, but rumour had it that he was driving the funeral car himself. She drew her cloak further around her and smoothed a hand over her belly. She would follow him south soon, when the early snows had melted.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from W.H. Auden's poem _Funeral Blues/Stop All the Clocks_


End file.
